Katie’s Super Easy Sunny Side Up

By Katie Barreira

Generally, I’m a pretty easy-going eater. But I’m a real stickler when it comes to eggs over easy. It’s a particularity comparable to my childhood aversion to fresh tomatoes, (as opposed to ketchup, a dietary staple) which I fiercely rejected, inspecting each leaf of lettuce on a plate of salad from which my mother had lovingly plucked the offending fruit and, upon spotting a cling-on seed, declared the dish to have been “slimed!”

Today, at 29 years old, I have a similarly infantile reaction to the mucus-like texture of an under-cooked egg white. Ironically, I am simply enamored of the rich and runny goodness of a barely cooked yolk that drips over bacon and sops into toast.

To this end, I have relentlessly tinkered with this egg preparation, endeavoring towards a thoroughly cooked and crispy-edged white, while maintaining a luxuriously loose yolk. I fried eggs on a griddle over high heat and steamed them in a covered pan over low heat. I started them on the stovetop and finished them in the oven. I manually expanded the surface area of the white by puncturing the coagulated albumen with a spatula and on the advice of my paternal grandmother, who used to supply me with sugar-laden bowls of corn flakes doused in half and half, I even went so far as to baste the whites with hot butter. While a few of the techniques proved sufficient, none provided the desired consistency.

The culinary oxymoron was finally achieved when I (duh!) separated the egg, allowing the white to cook in its own sweet time, before placing the yolk over top and covering the pan for a gentle finishing steam. Added bonus: the cooked white created a little nest for the yolk, sheltering it from the direct heat of the pan and maximizing its gooey goodness. Here’s the method.

1. Separate an egg, placing the white in one small dish and the yolk in another.
2. Melt a pat of butter in a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Add the white and cook until only a thin layer of jiggly white remains on the surface, 1 to 2 minutes.
3. Gently tip the yolk directly from the bowl onto the white. If the yolk wants to slide away, simply prop it in place with the lip of the bowl, it will set into place within a few seconds. Cover the pan and steam until the white is completely firm.
4. Slide onto a plate with a side of bacon and buttered toast.

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